Gut a house and refurbish

got alot done yesterday and today....all the remaining moulding and door frames, removed all the kitchen cabinets, the behemoth stove, the kitchen flooring, the bathroom fixtures, ceiling tiles in the living room and one bedroom, did some minor re-arragement in the basement. soon the walls will be stripped of all the sheet rock and then my contractor can do his thing. he came by today and has a target start date of approx. 2 weeks. we are getting there. i'm beat.

 

been real busy the last two days. my contractor and his crew began work yesterday tearing off the porch/roof on the west side of the house where the master suite is to be built. they got everything down but the concrete slab and brick/block porch foundation, which was removed and hauled off today by another sub for $130.00. (not too shabby.) inside, all the ceiling tiles are down and ALL THE SHEET ROCK is down and the inside demolition is 99% complete. nothing but studs and hard wood floors throughout the entire house. Fuckin' A! our demo dumpster is about full too. things are moving quickly. i got Monday off so i'll be down there pitching bricks into the dumpster as the outside brick wall must come down on the addition/west side of the house. i'll be piddling around in the basement too, making room for the electrician and plumbing.

 

my contractor had to work at another job site today so i spent the entire day differently than i had planned. first, i cut down the over-grown azalea's surrounding the front, SE side of the house and the huge ornamental cedar. the rest of the day was spent in the basement organizing and cleaning. cut down the remaining, towering rose bushes and arbor at the back of the house right before dark.

 

But can you do THIS!

 

What exactly are you PRESERVING? Wouldn't it be easier to buy some land and start from scratch?????

 

yes, it woulda been a HELLUVA lot easier to purchase a turn key house, like the one we sold, that we lived in for the past 14 years, to go this route. my wife really wanted this but i tried to disuade her from it. she won out......go figure (dont laugh). i actually had hoped we could'nt sell our home in time so this current deal would fall through but everything fell into place all of a sudden like and here i am.

this place is an older family home (on my wifes side of the family) and right beside her parents home/land. it aint so bad and its gonna be real nice but i'll sure be glad when this thing is finished. i've worked my ass off this last month and we've only just begun.

stay tuned. i plan on continuing this running documentary in hopes of helping (scaring) some other poor soul. my mother-in-law has about 30 demolition pics on her computer. i'd like to compile a "before and after' presentation for the board when this is finished.

 

Your wife just doesn't want you being pitiful lonely for the kids. This keeps you busy.

 

LOL Holly!

today began at 8am. i busted down the bricks on the exterior wall where the addition is to be built. then i loaded them onto my truck and drove around the house to the dumpster and pitched them in, one load at a time.......took all day and my arms now feel like they have lead weights attatched to them. but i'm ok. gonna go party with the wife down in south Charlotte at the Philip Morris Christmas Party at Jilians, i think. we gotta limo and some friends are riding with us. anyway, the HVAC guy came buy and we spoke about a totally new central heating and ac deal for the entire house, a hybrid gas/heat pump thing. that means i get to rip out more stuff. the old gas heater and all the air ducts in the basement gotta go. then the electrician came by. all the old cloth insulated wiring has gotta go too. more stuff for me to rip out. he'll disconnect all the in-house power, drop a construction/well dual power outlet and give me the green light to remove all the existing house wiring. my contractor then stops by. the old attic insulation should come out. more shit for me to do. but the sweat equity that i'm doing myself is saving me money on my overall renovation costs. i sometimes feel like i'm being swept up in all of this and dont know when things will settle down. but i know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere. i gotta keep going. i'm ready to party a little bit.

 

the wife and i laid outta work today and headed off around 7am. after a trip to Bojangles the commencement of HELL DAY began. the attic insulation had to come down and by God we were the ones' for the job. one layer of old dirty-ass rolled insulation underneath another layer of the blown-in "snow"......took all friggin day. the box of 52 count 55 gal. industrial trash bags are loaded and stacked out by the fence. i'll toss them into the dumpster tommorow after it has been emptied. i took out the old ceiling fan while i was up there too. damn thing weighed a ton. my contractor came by after lunch with his grading sub and dug the foundation for the addition footers. while all of this was going on, some junk man came by and asked what we were going to do with the behemoth stove and aluminum gutters and flashing that had been removed. i told him to take it if he would take the old heating oil drum that had laid out back for over a month since we removed it. he took it all.

after we had taken down the bulk of the insulation, i got up in the attic with my leaf blower and finished the job right. then we swept up and got the hell outta there. my father in-law helped us load the bags....appreciated that, it was a nasty damn job and we are beat.

 

Insulation is the worst.